Monday, 1 July 2013

Thought Fox

In amongst the misogyny, the wrath, the bullishness and the smoke (more smoke, less fire; less savage than the last) there's an ember of Ted Hughes that endures.... He needs shaking off, perhaps, but here function follows form (inverting Sullivan) and he's become necessary, if just for a single song. If this song, at the moment just a slightly slurred and snaky take on The Sutton Wytch Hunt, ever sees the light of day on the upcoming (soon, soon) IX Tab album then Ted will have to have his counterbalance & I know just the chap...

(some will have already guessed this forced mystery is mostly for me)

The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment's forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock's loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that now And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow Between trees, and warily a lame Shadow lags by stump and in hollow Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye, A widening deepening greenness, Brilliantly, concentratedly, Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox It enters the dark hole of the head. The window is starless still; the clock ticks, The page is printed.